2 more @ health stories- CTE/football & bariatric surgery

[neverfstop]

They are finding CTE in more and more young people (non-Pro) players & think that it may be more of the cumulative forces in a lifetime vs. a few larger hits.  Kids under 14 shouldn't play contact football. 

www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/16/us/cte-youth-football.html
Podcast www.nytimes.com/2023/12/19/podcasts/the-daily/youth-football-cte.html

With the APA's change in how they categorize obesity in kids, more are seeking gastric bypass surgery
Article (fixed link) www.nytimes.com/2023/10/31/magazine/teen-bariatric-surgery.html 
reading of article  Podcast www.nytimes.com/2023/12/17/podcasts/the-daily/bariatric-surgery-teen.html

ETA: trigger warning (suicide) on both topics

[waverly]

@ Since the story is partially about kids.

@ DS doesn’t play tackle football- we won’t let him but he plays soccer. He did a header and immediately had a headache after that. I think headers should start at age 18 not 11. There are rules about it I.e. no headers in practice which his coach follows but come on. You know there is damage. They need to change that rule and change tackle rules. I doubt they will get traction in high school but they start tackle at first grade here. Where I grew up it was middle school. Tackle football in first grade seems excessive.

[penguingrrl]

I read that article about football recently and it made me so sad. I’ll admit that tackle football has never been something I supported. I always had to go to football games in HS in order to be in marching band (we also did marching band competitions) and it annoyed me to waste that time in order to do it. As a parent I also am stuck going to football because my kid does marching band and I can’t watch because every single time there’s a tackle I get panicky. I never felt there was a safe way to tackle.

I actually think we should ban tackle football. It will never happen because of how profitable it is, but I don’t think anyone has any business playing it, regardless of age or skill level.

[pixy0stix]

I was pressed at little kid baseball practice why DS wasn't going to play football. I mentioned the rate of head injuries and the other parent acted like I was nuts.

[basilosaurus]

A kid playing my school was paralyzed during a tackle on our field. I thought surely they'd take some time off, rethink things, but, nope.

Football wasn't really a big thing at our school, but it was his, and he was being scored for sec d1. I do remember the entire community making sure that medical bills, who knows for his long, and college bills were covered (there were some very wealthy folks in the community) because obviously no more football scholarship. But, you know, not being paralyzed for a stupid fucking game is even better.

[waverly]

Dec 19, 2023 10:03:05 GMT -5 pixy0stix said:

I was pressed at little kid baseball practice why DS wasn't going to play football. I mentioned the rate of head injuries and the other parent acted like I was nuts.

I’ve gotten the same thing. Her kids played hockey so she didn’t feel that football was bad either. The participation in the young tackle football program and high school football is high here and parents just avoid all the statistics and say it’s not that bad.

[breezy8407]

DS is 11. We get asked all the time why he doesn't play football. He played flag for many years but stopped because all his friends moved to tackle. He's never shown an interest and I have been relieved.

However, between the two kids we have basketball, soccer, softball and baseball. I've seen injuries in all and its scary. Obviously the constant hitting isn't there.

[karinothing]

pixy0stix, I think the link about bypass surgery article is the football one. Not sure if there is another link? I can't read the articles without a subscription but I think about this a lot. My ex FIL had bypass surgery and was thinner, but overall seemed miserable and sadly TW ended up dying by suicide. Since then I have read a lot about the connection between the two and I do wonder how much counseling patients get regarding this possible side effect (and how much doctors are paying attention) it doesn't seem much in either case.

waverly, for some reason hockey and football seem different to me. I think both have high rate of possible injury but hockey seems ready to accept and take responsibility for injury and move towards protecting players more than the NFL did (who clearly ignored the CTE risk for decades). But I haven't done much research into it, so I could be wrong. I was just thinking how some leagues moved to immediately recommend neck guards after the guy was recently killed.

My son does gymnastics and I worry a lot about injuries and know they are likely coming. I told him we would have a serious talk about continuing if he was ever seriously injured. But I mean i think it is inevitable that he will miss a bar some day and smack onto the mat. I worry a lot about spinal cord injuries too.

[VillainV]

Dec 19, 2023 10:38:29 GMT -5 karinothing said:

My son does gymnastics and I worry a lot about injuries and know they are likely coming. I told him we would have a serious talk about continuing if he was ever seriously injured. But I mean i think it is inevitable that he will miss a bar some day and smack onto the mat. I worry a lot about spinal cord injuries too.

My sister is a sports medicine doctor, and she sees more concussions and orthopedic injuries from gymnastics than football, though I don’t know the breakdown between men’s and women’s gymnastics, or at what age level these injuries tend to occur.

We will not allow our son to play contact sports because he only has one kidney. Surprisingly, people are much more understanding about that reason than they are about avoiding concussions.

[macmars45]

Tackle football starts really young in my area. A bunch of kids at my work (an elementary school) try to play tackle football at recesses but we shut that down so fast. Touch football is okay. That is it. They also try and pat each other's butts. I tell them often they aren't in the NFL and they need to stop acting like it. Soccer is also pretty rough at my school. They are constantly plowing into each other and falling to the ground head or back first. I worry about head and spinal injuries.

[karinothing]

Dec 19, 2023 11:50:57 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Dec 19, 2023 10:38:29 GMT -5 karinothing said:

My son does gymnastics and I worry a lot about injuries and know they are likely coming. I told him we would have a serious talk about continuing if he was ever seriously injured. But I mean i think it is inevitable that he will miss a bar some day and smack onto the mat. I worry a lot about spinal cord injuries too.

My sister is a sports medicine doctor, and she sees more concussions and orthopedic injuries from gymnastics than football, though I don’t know the breakdown between men’s and women’s gymnastics, or at what age level these injuries tend to occur.

We will not allow our son to play contact sports because he only has one kidney. Surprisingly, people are much more understanding about that reason than they are about avoiding concussions.

Yeah it is 100% on my mind at all times. The coaches have told us they see more injuries in women's vs men's gymnastics, but I think (from my experience). The girls are pushed harder and advance more quickly than the men. From the studies I have read females suffer more severe injuries at a higher rate than men (it is something like 25% of women have injuries resulting in surgery while only 9% of men do, but this is college level). 

You encouraged me to look up concussion rates! lol. For men the rate of concussion is 5.11, but apparently that is only a .03 difference in the typical childhood rate. For females it is 2.97 which is .001 from typical childhood. So, I guess not that huge of a risk. The rate of extremity fracture/sprain was much higher though. 

his team has had 4 broken bones in his level this year (but none happened in gymnastics lol). 

[basilosaurus]

Dec 19, 2023 11:50:57 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Dec 19, 2023 10:38:29 GMT -5 karinothing said:

My son does gymnastics and I worry a lot about injuries and know they are likely coming. I told him we would have a serious talk about continuing if he was ever seriously injured. But I mean i think it is inevitable that he will miss a bar some day and smack onto the mat. I worry a lot about spinal cord injuries too.

My sister is a sports medicine doctor, and she sees more concussions and orthopedic injuries from gymnastics than football, though I don’t know the breakdown between men’s and women’s gymnastics, or at what age level these injuries tend to occur.

We will not allow our son to play contact sports because he only has one kidney. Surprisingly, people are much more understanding about that reason than they are about avoiding concussions.

My partner played football in hs, lacrosse in hs and club in college, and was a cheerleader. in both hs and college d1. He thinks he had more concussions from cheerleading and would never have let a child do any of those but cheerleading especially.

I do know someone (male) who was an olympic alternate in gymnastics whose equally capable brother had a serious spinal injury, I think broken vertebrae, from I think an olympic tryout. Thankfully, no paralysis, but still long term problems.

Hmmm, people worrying about protecting a kidney, which does have treatments and replacements, although of course to be avoided whenever possible, but not protecting the brain. I'm thinking their brains are not valued nor all that functional. 

[mrshandy]

The CTE stuff started coming out when DS was young so I always knew that I wouldn't want him to play football. He's a natural athlete, but is very small for his age (he's 4'10" and 13 years old). Because of this, he enjoys football but knows that it would be tough for him to play beyond just with his friends. He does baseball which he loves and is decent at, but will have a tough time getting on a high school team unless he does some growing soon. He's on his second year of wrestling which he seems to come to him easily. I feel like he has a future in it if he wants it. It's a good sport for him IMHO since he's always going to be going up against someone who is similar to his size.

[karinothing]

basilosaurus, you are making me nervous! It is so hard making these decisions. I don't know why, but with football it seems like the issue is clear. My kids won't play football but sometimes I feel hypocritical letting him do gymnastics.

[neverfstop]

FWIW- i'm also just concerned about general wear and tear on my own body, as well as that of my children. I hear so many baseball kids having Tommy John's surgery or volleyball girls having ACL tears, etc. I wish I had started taking better care of my body at an earlier age. I know it's fun & games in high school, but I'd hate for them to do any type of long-term injury or permanent damage.

[VillainV]

Dec 19, 2023 13:37:11 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

FWIW- i'm also just concerned about general wear and tear on my own body, as well as that of my children. I hear so many baseball kids having Tommy John's surgery or volleyball girls having ACL tears, etc. I wish I had started taking better care of my body at an earlier age. I know it's fun & games in high school, but I'd hate for them to do any type of long-term injury or permanent damage.

My husband and I joke about this, but it’s not really funny. We grew up in the 80s and 90s when playing lots of sports was thought to be healthy. Now we’re in our early 40s…he’s had 10 knee surgeries including a knee replacement (at age 40) and I’ve had three shoulder surgeries including major shoulder reconstruction, and have two very bad knees. He was a junior-Olympic level swimmer, and I did rec and high school level basketball and track and lots of running as an adult. I’d we’d known the toll that sports would have played on our bodies, we probably would have made different choices.

[basilosaurus]

Dec 19, 2023 13:20:36 GMT -5 karinothing said:

basilosaurus, you are making me nervous! It is so hard making these decisions. I don't know why, but with football it seems like the issue is clear. My kids won't play football but sometimes I feel hypocritical letting him do gymnastics.

I'm sorry. I worry as well about girls soccer. So many various knee ligament injuries and others.

Exorcise is good, but it's love my eutopian world if low impact non competitive never going to happen future

[neverfstop]

Dec 19, 2023 13:53:28 GMT -5 VillainV said:

Dec 19, 2023 13:37:11 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

FWIW- i'm also just concerned about general wear and tear on my own body, as well as that of my children. I hear so many baseball kids having Tommy John's surgery or volleyball girls having ACL tears, etc. I wish I had started taking better care of my body at an earlier age. I know it's fun & games in high school, but I'd hate for them to do any type of long-term injury or permanent damage.

My husband and I joke about this, but it’s not really funny. We grew up in the 80s and 90s when playing lots of sports was thought to be healthy. Now we’re in our early 40s…he’s had 10 knee surgeries including a knee replacement (at age 40) and I’ve had three shoulder surgeries including major shoulder reconstruction, and have two very bad knees. He was a junior-Olympic level swimmer, and I did rec and high school level basketball and track and lots of running as an adult. I’d we’d known the toll that sports would have played on our bodies, we probably would have made different choices.

But I thought swimming was a safe choice! lol....strength+cardio+stretching!  Or is it more because of the repetitive nature or more the intensity?  Should our kids just have free play in the wood?  and hopefully not fall out of trees?

[erbear]

Dec 19, 2023 9:42:44 GMT -5 waverly said:

@ Since the story is partially about kids.

@ DS doesn’t play tackle football- we won’t let him but he plays soccer. He did a header and immediately had a headache after that. I think headers should start at age 18 not 11. There are rules about it I.e. no headers in practice which his coach follows but come on. You know there is damage. They need to change that rule and change tackle rules. I doubt they will get traction in high school but they start tackle at first grade here. Where I grew up it was middle school. Tackle football in first grade seems excessive.

Part of the problem is that no one is clear on the rules, as they differ from state to state and league to league. My older DD is now in high school, playing varsity soccer. She's played club for years. Everyone expects them to head now, but no one ever taught them how, which is crazy to me.

I think soccer has one of the highest concussion rates but does not seem to have CTE as regularly. I worry about my kids getting hurt playing soccer (especially ACL tears, which are so common in girls soccer) but somehow it seems less dangerous to me than football. I am glad I don't have to tell my kids they can't play football, because no chance would I let them at any age.

[waverly]

Dec 19, 2023 14:50:19 GMT -5 erbear said:

Dec 19, 2023 9:42:44 GMT -5 waverly said:

@ Since the story is partially about kids.

@ DS doesn’t play tackle football- we won’t let him but he plays soccer. He did a header and immediately had a headache after that. I think headers should start at age 18 not 11. There are rules about it I.e. no headers in practice which his coach follows but come on. You know there is damage. They need to change that rule and change tackle rules. I doubt they will get traction in high school but they start tackle at first grade here. Where I grew up it was middle school. Tackle football in first grade seems excessive.

Part of the problem is that no one is clear on the rules, as they differ from state to state and league to league. My older DD is now in high school, playing varsity soccer. She's played club for years. Everyone expects them to head now, but no one ever taught them how, which is crazy to me.

I think soccer has one of the highest concussion rates but does not seem to have CTE as regularly. I worry about my kids getting hurt playing soccer (especially ACL tears, which are so common in girls soccer) but somehow it seems less dangerous to me than football. I am glad I don't have to tell my kids they can't play football, because no chance would I let them at any age.

I’m in IL. As far as I know our rules are statewide, and the leagues seem to follow the rules. I think they might uncover CTE if there were multiple hits but since they are banned in practice at least that helps prevent those multiple hits. And it does appear that the leagues are following that rule and concussion protocol around here.

I see it as my job as their parent to protect their health so that’s why I see it as 18 for all sports really that would be considered at risk for CTE. If they want to play college or professional sports with a high indicator of CTE then they should be old enough to consent to it. A first grader can’t consent to CTE from tackle football.

[jamaicam]

My son's school soccer coach (most of the kids are 10-12 ) has them do heading practice one at the start of the year and then that is it. He uses a soft ball and it is to teach them technique. I am not keen on it but he explained that if a ball comes at their head, it is safer for them to know what to do to head it than doing it with no technique. His club team, where they are all 9 or 10, doesn't do any heading at all and teaches them how to back up and take the ball on their chest instead.

VillainV, I am another one who thought swimming was one of the best sports for not having life-altering injuries!

[VillainV]

Dec 19, 2023 14:26:35 GMT -5 neverfstop said:

Dec 19, 2023 13:53:28 GMT -5 VillainV said:

My husband and I joke about this, but it’s not really funny. We grew up in the 80s and 90s when playing lots of sports was thought to be healthy. Now we’re in our early 40s…he’s had 10 knee surgeries including a knee replacement (at age 40) and I’ve had three shoulder surgeries including major shoulder reconstruction, and have two very bad knees. He was a junior-Olympic level swimmer, and I did rec and high school level basketball and track and lots of running as an adult. I’d we’d known the toll that sports would have played on our bodies, we probably would have made different choices.

But I thought swimming was a safe choice! lol....strength+cardio+stretching!  Or is it more because of the repetitive nature or more the intensity?  Should our kids just have free play in the wood?  and hopefully not fall out of trees?

LOTS of swimmers have knee and shoulder overuse injuries. It’s not torn ACLS or whatever from a traumatic injury, but the repetitive movements definitely take a toll.

[lilac05]

I’m so glad to see CTE getting more and more attention, and not just with NFL. I remember first really learning about head injuries in sports when I was in grad school circa 2003. I was telling my college offensive lineman boyfriend now husband about it, and he just would not/could not believe me. “If it was really that bad, they would do something about it!” Ha! Not when there’s that much money involved.

We drew a hard line at football and mostly on soccer. I know too much to let my kids do it. We actually have even stopped watching college and NFL games because I just can’t support it.

All sports have risks, some more than others. But I’m take a torn ACL over a brain injury any day. The biggest risk in all sports is overuse, and that’s just going to continue to increase. Kids are forced to specialize way too early and train way too hard to stay competitive, and it’s ruining their bodies.

As far as swimming, it’s definitely overuse. My boys swim competitively, but in a team that allows kids/families the opportunity to decide how much they’d like to train. My 7th grader could be practicing 6 days/ 15 hours a week in the water plus 2 hours dry land. He has three friends who do that, two who also have private coaching. At their age especially, it puts them at high risk for overuse injuries.

[gretchenindisguise]

I'm a swimmer who had surgery as a junior in hs due to an overuse injury. It hasn't really impacted me much as an adult though.

[SusanBAnthony]

The bariatric surgery link still isn't working for me. I was recently reading something about if the new weight loss meds are approved for teens. I believe they are for 12 plus. I think that's a much more interesting option than bariatric surgery. Maybe some parents feel the long term risks of a drug are more concerning than a one time surgery, and maybe we don't know enough about the psychological aspects yet.

[erbear]

Serious competitive youth athlete and D1 collegiate player here. No injuries from sports to speak of as an adult.

I think some of it is that no one specialized then. I played three different seasons of varsity sports through high school. I was never playing the same sport year round. Some of it is just good luck.

[neverfstop]

Dec 19, 2023 19:39:52 GMT -5 SusanBAnthony said:

The bariatric surgery link still isn't working for me. I was recently reading something about if the new weight loss meds are approved for teens. I believe they are for 12 plus. I think that's a much more interesting option than bariatric surgery. Maybe some parents feel the long term risks of a drug are more concerning than a one time surgery, and maybe we don't know enough about the psychological aspects yet.

The link appears fine, but comes up with this after the HTML, just delete the extra stuff .html%C2%A0

[wanderingback]

Dec 19, 2023 19:45:46 GMT -5 erbear said:

Serious competitive youth athlete and D1 collegiate player here. No injuries from sports to speak of as an adult.

I think some of it is that no one specialized then. I played three different seasons of varsity sports through high school. I was never playing the same sport year round. Some of it is just good luck.

Yeah I think it’s luck. I played soccer year round starting at age 10. In high school I still played soccer year round (high school in the fall, indoor club team, travel spring team) plus did indoor and outdoor track. Then D1 in college. No major injuries except a few sprained ankles and overall my body feels ok and until covid hit I still played soccer. I rarely headed the ball, I guess I knew back then that it wouldn’t be great for me!

The repetitive hitting of football though is just so scary. No way would I let my young kid participate.

[lilac05]

Dec 20, 2023 0:04:38 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

Dec 19, 2023 19:45:46 GMT -5 erbear said:

Serious competitive youth athlete and D1 collegiate player here. No injuries from sports to speak of as an adult.

I think some of it is that no one specialized then. I played three different seasons of varsity sports through high school. I was never playing the same sport year round. Some of it is just good luck.

Yeah I think it’s luck. I played soccer year round starting at age 10. In high school I still played soccer year round (high school in the fall, indoor club team, travel spring team) plus did indoor and outdoor track. Then D1 in college. No major injuries except a few sprained ankles and overall my body feels ok and until covid hit I still played soccer. I rarely headed the ball, I guess I knew back then that it wouldn’t be great for me!

The repetitive hitting of football though is just so scary. No way would I let my young kid participate.

I think soccer has an advantage over some sports that the usage of your body is not really repetitive, and it’s a more natural movement. There are so many different ways to train and improve your game in soccer and basketball, agility, endurance, ball handling, offense, defense, etc. Practices often include a mixture of all of those things and even mini breaks (even if 20 seconds) while waiting for your next turn in still. When it comes to things like swimming, tennis, and pitching, the only way to get better is to do the same thing over and over and over…and they use muscles that have less important jobs in daily life.

[frlcb]

Dec 19, 2023 19:45:46 GMT -5 erbear said:

Serious competitive youth athlete and D1 collegiate player here. No injuries from sports to speak of as an adult.

I think some of it is that no one specialized then. I played three different seasons of varsity sports through high school. I was never playing the same sport year round. Some of it is just good luck.

I also think we are more aware of the need for proper stretching before workouts. My daughter is a super competitive swimmer (she is 12) and they do so much dry land before their swimming, for that exact reason. There is more knowledge now of the importance of that I think.